(Q).
Concepts from science and nature are filled with our language's common phrases , idioms and spoken expressions. The unbelieving expression "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle" has its origin in bitter disbelief over Darwin's writings on evolution. These colourful expressions bring spice  to our language. Yet certain well-used phrases from science are just plain wrong! Some are obvious, yet we use them anyhow. For example, a person who acutely shakes her head and says " A watched pot never boils" while you are waiting second after tiring second for test results to arrive or job offers to come in knows that if she sat down and watched a pot containing water on a stove over high heat for long enough, the water will eventually boil. However, a few phrases have less obvious scientific inaccuracies. Here are a few for you to consider. Once in a blue moon: This poetic phrase refers to something that occurs extremely rarely. A blue moon is the term commonly used for a second full moon that occasionally appears in a single month of our solar-based calendars. The problem with the phrase, however, is that blue moons are not so rare. They happen every few years at least, and can even happen within months of each other when the 29.5-day lunar cycle puts the full moon at the beginning of any month but February. The usage of "blue moon" as the second full moon in a month dates back to a 1937 Marine Farmer's Almanac . But before that, blue moons meant something slightly different. Typically, 12 full moons occur from winter solstice to the next winter solstice, but occasionally a fourth full moon in a season could be observed . In such a case, one of the four full moons in that season was known as "blue" Where there's smoke, there's fire: The phrase means that if something looks wrong, it likely is wrong. But let's step back. Do you always have to have fire if you see smoke? Answering that first requires defining 'fire" , Merriam--Webster's first definition of fire is " the phenomenon of combustion manifested in light, flame and... According to the passage, the blue moon   _  . A) appears at the beginning of a month B) gains its modern meaning before 1937 C) presents itself quite frequently sometimes D) can never be seen by people in February
(A).
C


(Q).
I can still remember the first day when I met my best friend. She had just moved into the neighborhood and her grandmother brought her down to meet me. I hid behind my mother and she hid behind her grandmother, scared to look at each other. Soon, we lost the shyness and started playing with each other, bike riding to each other's house and having sleepovers. In 7thgrade she was going through family problems. However, every summer we would always sit at each other's house and watch movies on TV and talk about all the boys we liked. It was last year when I noticed the problem. She suffered from clinical depression , and had to go to a hospital during the day. I was very sorry for her at first. But with the late night calls, and meeting each other halfway up the street at midnight, we still stayed in touch. I wanted to be there for her since her new best friend left her, and I knew I still cared about her like a sister. Yesterday she came to me and said this. "I never knew what a best friend was until you were the only person that would stop me from cutting myself; the only person that ever made me feel better about myself and my problems. You didn't know this but I was trying to kill myself that very night you called me and I was crying. I owe you so much, and you didn't even know you were helping me. " We both cried. And I guess a kind of lesson from my life so far is to never give up your friends. Even if they aren't as cool as others, or people think they are crazy, they need someone there. If you leave them, you will only be very sorry. So if friends need you, and you care for them, you should be always there for them. What would have happened to her friend if the author had not cared about her? A) She would have lost her new best friend. B) She would have killed herself that night. C) She would have run away from her family. D) She would have stayed in hospital for a long time.
(A).
B


(Q).
He came into the room to shut the windows while we were still in bed and I saw he looked ill. He was shivering, his face was white, and he walked slowly as though it ached to move. "What's the matter, Schatz?" "I've got a headache." "You better go back to bed." "No. I'm all right." "You go to bed. I'll see you when I'm dressed." But when I came downstairs he was dressed, sitting by the fire, looking a very sick and miserable boy of nine years. When I put my hand on his forehead I knew he had a fever. "You go up to bed," I said, "You're sick." "I'm all right," he said. When the doctor came he took the boy's temperature. "What's is it?" I asked him. "One hundred and two." Downstairs, the doctor left three different medicines in different colored capsules with instructions for giving them. One was to bring down the fever, another a purgative , the third to overcome an acid condition. The germs of influenza can only exist in an acid condition, he explained. He seemed to know all about influenza and said there was nothing to worry about if the fever did not go above one hundred and four degrees. This was a light epidemic(;) of flu and there was no danger if you avoided pneumonia . Back in the room I wrote the boy's temperature down and made a note of the time to give the various capsules. "Do you want me to read to you?" "All right. If you want to, " said the boy. His face was very white and there were dark areas under his eyes. He lay still in the bed and seemed very detached(;)from what was going on. I read aloud from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates ;but I could see he was not following what I was reading. "How do you feel, Schatz?" I asked him. "Just the same, so far," he said. I sat at the foot of the bed and read to myself while I waited for it to be time to give another capsule. It would have been natural for him to go to sleep, but when I looked up he was looking at the foot of the bed, looking very strangely. "Why don't you try to sleep? I'll wake you up for the medicine." "I'd rather stay awake." After a... From the story we know that the boy kept tight control over himself because   _  . A) he did not want to be a bother to others B) he wanted to recover quickly so that he could go hunting with his father C) he was afraid that he would die if he lost control over himself D) he thought he was going to die and he must show courage in the face of death
(A).

D